Once taboo, cellphones now encouraged at some Treasure Valley - TopicsExpress

Once taboo, cellphones now encouraged at some Treasure Valley schools But devices come with problems: New ways to cheat and increased texting. By Bill Roberts Idaho Idaho Statesman A student caught with a cellphone at school used to face almost certain doom. There was the trip to the vice principals office. Or the administrator slipped the phone into his desk drawer till the final bell rang. Or, worst of all, there was the dreaded call to parents. Teachers and principals once viewed cellphones as distractions and enemies of education. Now, increasing numbers of them are encouraging students to bring their electronic devices to class as an instrument that can deepen their learning. In Laurie Roberts senior AP Lit class at Boises Timberline High School, students not only bring their phones, they use Twitter accounts to send short messages posted on a screen for everyone to see. The tweets ask questions or offer comments about the lesson. I was a little worried about how distracting it would be, said Roberts, who initiated the lesson built around personal digital technology this school year. Instead, shes discovered students are participating more than their predecessors in a traditional classroom lesson were. They are all ... going to have something to do, she said. Beginning this year, the Boise School District is encouraging teachers to find ways for students to use their phones, tablets and laptops in classroom instruction. Its called BYOD - Bring Your Own Device - and it is a way to stretch the use of technology in education when the school district cant afford to buy computers for every student in a classroom. BYOD isnt new. More than half of the school districts in the country now integrate devices that students bring from home in at least some classes, and largely in the upper grades, said Allison Powell, vice president for new learning models for the International Association for K-12 Online Learning. Students in Emmett Wemps pre-engineering class at Columbia High School in Nampa use their devices to take pictures of notes on a board or find conversion tables for thermodynamic calculations. He can cover material more quickly, because students dont have to go through the process of copying his notes into their notebooks. It makes a huge difference, Wemp said. We can get a lot deeper into topics. At Timberline High, Roberts uses what she calls a Socratic seminar to discuss books students are reading. The room is configured in two concentric circles. In the inner circle, students discuss the book. In the outer circle, students listen and tweet responses or questions that can guide the discussion. After several minutes, the two groups switch. Before the introduction of phones and tablets this fall, Roberts said some students sat and listened, but it was hard to tell if they were engaged. With the devices, she can see fingers and thumbs racing across keyboards and the resultant tweets going up on the screen. She asks each student to tweet three times in a class period. Your goal is participation, she said. The students responses guide the discussion. When there is a lull in the conversation, it is cool to look up and see other peoples questions to start a new conversation, said Christine Pinney, 17. Occasionally, Roberts will intervene to make sure students are covering all the essential points in a lesson. There is a lot of interaction, said Dylan Tremble, 17. BYOD brings a couple of challenges. Allowing cellphones at Timberline has led to instances of students photographing tests or texting to people in other classrooms, Principal Rich Webb said. But the school teaches digital citizenship - dos and donts of home-device use - in hopes of eliminating those problems. A student who uses a device for cheating could get a zero on a test, face in-house suspension or removal from the class, just as any student caught cheating would. A second issue is digital equality. Teachers who use home-based devices in their classrooms must provide access for students who dont have their own tablets or phones, or whose parents wont let them have Twitter accounts. In Roberts class, those students go to a white board to write their comments and questions. Roberts isnt the only teacher at Timberline to have a BYOD learning plan, Webb said. For example, some science teachers use devices in conjunction with research apps that can help with experiments. BYOD isnt just to get technology into the classroom, Webb said. Timberlines main goal is to improve learning, and BYOD can enrich the experience, he said. Teachers can track student learning in real time, too. Its a chance to assess the learning as they are learning, Webb said. Bill Roberts: 377-6408, Twitter: @IDS_BillRoberts